HOW can I Develop Resiliency – Self Knowledge

In Part Three of our series of articles about Resiliency, we address how to develop this most important life skill by examining Self Knowledge.

Another important aspect of resiliency is self-knowledge and awareness. To be resilient, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of yourself, your flaws, and your strengths. This understanding enables you to work on your weaknesses and rely on your strengths in the tough times. When faced with adversity, if we are unaware of our weaknesses it is easy to be blindsided and fall into bad habits. If we are aware, however, then we can emphasise our strengths and work through our shortcomings to reach the other side. It’s also important to be flexible. Life is full of turns and twists, and so it is important to be flexible and adaptable if life takes you on an unexpected journey.

To apply to a practical situation, imagine you have a maths test tomorrow that you don’t feel prepared for because maths isn’t your best subject. You can’t study much tonight because you have soccer training for 2 hours, but you don’t want to skip training. This conflict causes higher than normal stress levels, and a non-resilient person might just give up on the test tomorrow because you’re “not good at math anyway.” A resilient person would focus on their strengths in this situation to get the best possible outcome. For example, if you study well with other people, you might ask your mum/dad to help you study after training, or call up a friend to talk it through. By focusing on a strength (studying with others) you have gotten the best out of your study tonight and will feel more prepared for the test tomorrow, even though you missed some study time for training.

Not everyone automatically knows their strengths and weaknesses, however, and it often takes trial and error to figure this out. ReviseOnline is handy in this regard because it gives you the opportunity to do practise tests and exams in exam-like conditions while still at home! This allows you to work out which curriculum points are your strengths at and which ones are your weakness, prior to actually taking a test or exam at school, as well as helping build your confidence and resilience regarding test-taking abilities.